Life and Times of Mental Illness

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Head Games

The title says it all, my brain seems to like to play games with me. Second guesses, hallucinations, hearing things, putting me down, etc. I apologize for that last sentence as it was pretty bad, but I’ll keep it as it gets my point across. I’ll start with the obvious and probably most universal scenario that I deal with: Blogging. I will write and write and get on a roll, but as soon as I stop or get stuck on a point the old brain starts grinding out doubts and put downs. I start second guessing the point of even writing this blog and I am ultra critical of every point I try to make. Sometimes the critique is valid, but most of the time I blow a small oversight out of proportion and start tearing apart everything I just typed out. I’m sure everyone has those moments; seems to be a trait of every writer I’ve come in contact with. Even after I have published a post I will mull it over in my head for hours, becoming more and more embarrassed of it. It doesn’t help matters when I keep looking at my stats and they aren’t moving anywhere; instead of realizing that there are thousands of blogs out there for people to read and I shouldn’t gauge my post quality on that, but easier said than done. In the end it shouldn’t matter because I write what I write to help me and if it helps others that is a bonus!

The blogging issue is small potatoes compared to the optical and auditory hallucinations that I sometimes (not too often) experience. In fact, on the way to work this morning I kept seeing someone sitting in my back seat after I had dropped the kids off. It’s always in the corner of my eye or quickly in and out. It could be my imagination or it could be more than that, the doctors can figure that out, but it happens either way. These episodes set my anxiety through the roof. I have always suffered from this sort of thing, but I spent years thinking I could see ghosts. When I was younger, living in Pinawa, Manitoba, I would wake up in the middle of the night and look out my bedroom window to see a small child sitting in the road playing with a ball. I remember being terrified the first few times, but became more intrigued as time went on. I also seem to remember events in my life entirely different from what the reality was; I will remember people being there who weren’t, I’ll remember saying things that I didn’t and the list goes on from there. A more common hallucination I have has become more of an annoyance than anything. When I am stressed out I often perceive the ground as moving; almost like it is breathing. This makes me second guess my movements or just paralyzes me to the chair. I hate it.

These are just two examples from a far bigger problem. I won’t keep going as I’m sure you have gotten the idea. I got annoyed with all the two-line quotes of “inspiration” on Facebook this morning and this thought sprouted in my head: Two line quotes do not sum up the battle of life, even if they have an upside down cat or cursive font